Awakening Dublin’s Gothic Heart
Terrifying line-up of Gothic events revealed
The Bram Stoker Festival, running Friday 24th through to Monday 27th October, has revealed a plethora of terrifying happenings for the 2014 programme. This year the festival will infiltrate the very crevices of the city, awakening the dormant gothic that sleeps in the heart of Dublin and painting the city red with the legacy of Bram Stoker.
Ticketing for the 2014 festival is now live for more than thirty events, with two additional mystery happenings being announced in early October. There is a festival treat for Stoker aficionados of all ages, in five key strands; Children of the Night, Street Treats, Deadly Words, Dark Energy and Sinister Screenings.
Programme highlights include; the ethereal ShapeShifter’s Ball from party masters Body&Soul at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Irish première of The Curse of Styria featuring Stephen Rea – a secretive, sexy and sinister film based on Le Fanu’s Carmilla, and a terrifying underground train ride through one of Dublin’s best-kept secrets – an almost mythical Irish Rail tunnel far beneath the city streets.
Watch Bram Stoker Festival 2013 – Official Video
A number of Sinister Screenings chosen by film curator Maeve McGrath are sure to entice latent ?Goths out of hiding with a range of exciting, rare and frightening silver screen classics. Screening at Meeting House Square are; eighties cult classic The Lost Boys, spreading their unforgettable mantra, “Never grow old. Never die. It’s fun to be a vampire” and for Gothic music fans, The Cure in Orange, a little seen recording of an outdoor concert filmed in 1986. The festival will also host the Irish première of Beautiful Noise, the first-ever documentary about one of the most influential, underground music movements of the 20th century with special guest appearances from musical icons and, at Christchurch cathedral, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari with live music by 3epkano. In addition John Cocteau masterpieces La Belle et La Béte, a much-loved gothic fairytale and Orpheé, a magical retelling of the Orpheus myth will have special screenings at the Brookes Hotel cinema, and the annual IFI Horrorthon will be screening a gory array of shocking films from Ireland and abroad.
Street Treats, will firmly place the city streets within Bram Stoker’s grasp with a number of outdoor happenings penetrating the city hot-spots. Participants are invited to join an epic battle in the Goths V Zombies Dance-Off, a fancy dress, music and dance battle between two legions of horror lore on the mean streets of Dublin with an advance free online Goth/Zombie make-up tutorial. Glaswegian artist Claire Biddles will be inviting the public to a Goth Karaoke where they will have the chance to live out their teen Goth fantasies by performing live on stage, meanwhile, A Gothic Fair will pop-up in Smithfield’s Generator with food, drink, music and over 35 market stalls inviting bargain hunters to ‘fall victim’. Finally, shrouded in the forest of St Anne’s Park, Clontarf, a very special performance of Der Vampyr from Opera in the Open will resonate through the trees.
The Dark Energy programme offers an eclectic mix of unusual events for curious culture hunters and the quirky trendsetters including; Blood and Earth, an interactive food cookery demo with Domestic Godless; Bloodworks a gory, educational exhibition at the Science Gallery and The Judges House, a tailor made audio-horror experience hidden within Marsh’s Library. Straight from Edinburgh Festival Fringe the sold out Total Theatre Award winning hit, Near Gone, will put words to the unspeakable and from Transylvania, DJ Nico de Transilvania will host Romanian Night, an inexhaustible night of Balkan electro. For the first year there will be a ‘roving festival club’ with official nightclub partners The Opium Rooms in the Camden Quarter, Generator in Smithfield and Alfie Byrne’s at the Conrad Hotel each hosting a Gothically themed evening-time soiree with blood-curdling cocktails, heart-pounding tunes and unsettling interactions around every corner. The Camden Quarter will host The Weekend of the Dead, with silent disco, on-street performances and Ireland’s biggest séance and at Alfie Byrne’s, Dr Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, a life drawing class and cabaret extravaganza will pop-up.
Events within the Children of the Night part of the programme, are family friendly day time occurrences suitable for mini-vampires and parents. In Temple Bar, the Project Arts Centre will host the terribly cute Vampire with No Teeth, a production of three spooky mini-stories told using interactive storytelling and live illustration. The Ark present two fun fearsome events; Dracula’s Basement Spooky Sounds Laboratory where Dracula will raid The Ark’s music cupboard for all their weirdest instruments and put them in his sound lab in the basement and Minnie & the Illywackers Family Halloween Concert, a warm and friendly musical event for families from this delightful jazz, blues and country band featuring Dracula inspired songs, sounds and gothic pumpkins.
